Michael Connelly - The Black Ice

Inside, the waiting room contained four rows of plastic chairs that faced a counter on which a uniformed officer leaned. Almost every chair was taken and every person watched the uniform intently. He was wearing mirrored glasses and reading a newspaper.

Bosch approached him and told him in Spanish that he had an appointment with Investigator Carlos Aguila. He opened his badge case and placed it on the counter. The man behind it did not seem impressed. But he slowly reached under the counter and brought up a phone. It was an old rotary job, much older than the building they were in, and it seemed to take him an hour to dial the number.

After a moment, the desk officer began speaking rapid-fire Spanish into the phone. Harry could make out only a few words. Captain. Gringo. Yes. LAPD. Investigator. He also thought he heard the desk man say Charlie Chan. The desk officer listened for a few moments and then hung up. Without looking at Bosch he jerked his thumb toward the door behind him and went back to his newspaper. Harry walked around the counter and through the door into a hallway that extended both right and left with many doors each way. He stepped back into the waiting room, tapped the desk officer on the shoulder and asked which way.

“To the end, last door,” the officer said in English and pointed to the hallway to the left.

Bosch followed the directions and came to a large room where several men milled around standing and others sat on couches. There were bicycles leaning on the walls where there was not a couch. There was a lone desk, at which a young woman sat typing while a man apparently dictated to her. Harry noticed the man had a Barretta 9mm wedged in the waistband of his double-knit pants. He then noticed that some of the other men wore guns in holsters or also in their waistbands. This was the detective bureau. The chatter in the room stopped when Bosch walked in. He asked the man closest to him for Carlos Aguila. This caused another man to call through a doorway at the back of the room. Again, it was too fast but Bosch heard the word Chan and tried to think what it meant in Spanish. The man who had yelled then jerked his thumb toward the door and Bosch went that way. He heard quiet laughter behind him but didn’t turn around.

The door led to a small office with a single desk. Behind it a man with gray hair and tired eyes sat smoking a cigarette. A Mexican newspaper, a glass ashtray and a telephone were the only items on the desk. A man with mirrored aviator glasses-what else was new?-sat in a chair against the far wall and studied Bosch. Unless he was sleeping.

“ Buenos dias, ” the older man said. In English he said, “I am Captain Gustavo Grena and you are Detective Harry Bosch. We spoke yesterday.”

Bosch reached across the desk and shook his hand. Grena then indicated the man in the mirrors.

“And Investigator Aguila is who you have come to see. What have you brought from your investigation in Los Angeles?”

Aguila, the officer who had sent the inquiry to the Los Angeles consulate, was a small man with dark hair and light skin. His forehead and nose were burned red by the sun but Bosch could see his white chest through the open collar of his shirt. He wore jeans and black leather boots. He nodded to Bosch but made no effort to shake his hand.

There was no chair to sit down on so Harry walked up close to the desk and placed the file down. He opened it and took out morgue Polaroids of Juan Doe #67’s face and the chest tattoo. He handed them to Grena, who studied them a moment and then put them down.

“You also look for a man, then? The killer, perhaps?” Grena asked.

“There is a possibility that he was killed here and his body taken to Los Angeles. If that is so, then your department should look for the killer, perhaps.”

Grena put a puzzled look on his face.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Why? Why would this happen? I am sure you must be mistaken, Detective Bosch.”

Bosch shook his shoulders. He wasn’t going to press it. Yet.

“Well, I’d like to at least get the identification confirmed and then go from there.”

“Very well,” Grena said. “I leave you with Investigator Aguila. But I have to inform you, the business you mentioned on the phone yesterday, EnviroBreed, I have personally interviewed the manager and he has assured me that your Juan Doe did not work there. I have saved you that much time.”

Grena nodded as if to say his efforts were no inconvenience at all. Think nothing of it.

“How can they be sure when we don’t have the ID yet?”

Grena dragged on his cigarette to give him time to think about that one. He said, “I provided the name Fernal Gutierrez-Llosa to him. No such employee at any time. This is an American contractor, we must be careful… You see, we do not wish to step on the toes of the international trade.”

Grena stood up, dropped his cigarette in the ash tray and nodded to Aguila. Then he left the office. Bosch looked at the mirrored glasses and wondered if Aguila had understood a word of what had just been said.

“Don’t worry about the Spanish,” Aguila said after Grena was gone. “I speak your language.”

Bosch insisted that he drive, saying he did not want to leave the Caprice-it wasn’t his, he explained-in the parking lot. What he didn’t explain was that he wanted to be near his gun, which was still in the trunk. On their way through the plaza, they waved away the children with their hands out.

In the car, Bosch said, “How’re we going to make the ID without prints?”

Aguila picked the file up off the seat.

“His friends and wife will look at the photos.”

“We going to his house? I can lift prints, take ’em back to L.A. to have someone take a look. It would confirm it.”

“It is not a house, Detective Bosch. It is a shack.”

Bosch nodded and started the car. Aguila directed him farther south to Boulevard Lazaro Cardenas on which they headed west for a short while before turning south again on Avenida Canto Rodado.

“We go to the barrio,” Aguila said. “It is know as Ciudad de los Personas Perdidos. City of Lost Souls.”

“That’s what the tattoo means, right? The ghost? Lost Souls?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

Bosch thought a moment before asking, “How far is it from Lost Souls barrio to Saints and Sinners?”

“It is also in the southwest sector. Not far from Lost Souls. I will show it to you if you wish.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“Is there a reason you ask?”

Bosch thought of Corvo’s admonition not to trust the local police.

“Just curious,” he said. “It’s another case.”

He immediately felt guilty at not being truthful with Aguila. He was a cop and Bosch felt he deserved the benefit of the doubt. But not according to Corvo. They drove in silence for a while after that. They were moving away from the city and the comfort of buildings and traffic. The commercial businesses and the shops and restaurants gave way to more shacks and cardboard shanties. Harry saw a refrigerator box near the side of the road that was somebody’s home. The people they passed, sitting on rusted engine blocks, oil drums, stared at the car with hollow eyes. Bosch tried to keep his eyes on the dusty road.

“They called you Charlie Chan back there, how come?”

He asked primarily because he was nervous and thought conversation might distract him from his uneasiness and the unpleasantness of the journey they were making.

“Yes,” Aguila said. “It is because I am Chinese.”

Bosch turned and looked at him. From the side, he could look behind the mirrors and see the slight rounding of the eyes. It was there.

“Partly, I should say. One of my grandfathers. There is a large Chinese-Mexican community in Mexicali, Detective Bosch.”